Particularly for environment-sensitive items (e.g., temperature sensitive items) being transported between an origin and a destination, shippers, carriers, and/or recipients may desire to ensure that an item does not undesirably reach high and/or low temperatures during shipment. However, due to possible temperature fluctuations that may occur as a carrier transports items through various regions between an origin and a destination, parties have historically faced a great deal of uncertainty in estimating whether a particular item is likely to be exposed to undesirably high and/or undesirably low temperatures during transportation. Accordingly, because parties may be unsure whether an item is likely to be exposed to undesirable environmental conditions, such as undesirable temperatures during shipment, parties may utilize known methodologies for maintaining the temperature of an item during shipment, regardless of the environmental temperature in a region surrounding the item. In certain instances, such additional precaution may be unnecessary when an item is routed through regions in which environmental temperatures are estimated to remain within an acceptable temperature range for the item. Such precautionary methodologies often require costly equipment and/or additional resources in order to ensure that an item temperature remains within a desired range, and accordingly utilizing such precautionary methodologies may expose parties to unnecessary cost when a transportation route does not expose the item to undesirable temperatures.
Accordingly, a need exists for concepts for monitoring environmental conditions along transportation routes to determine whether an item is likely to be exposed to undesirable environmental conditions.